An increasing number of households have more than one personal computing device. As the number of personal computing devices within the home increases, there is a need and consumer demand for interconnectivity among these devices and for connectivity between these devices and host systems located outside of the home. For instance, in a household that includes more than one personal computing device, it may be desirable to enable connection between each device and an Internet Service Provider (ISP). It is possible to simply network several devices together in the home to enable interconnectivity among the devices and to enable a connection to outside host systems. However, with the devices networked together, the host system may recognize the entire network as a single device rather than recognizing the individual devices within the network or users of those individual devices.
Failing to recognize and thus distinguish the individual devices or individual users of the devices may prevent the host system from enforcing or enabling preferences and features otherwise distinguishable among individual devices or users, such as parental access controls. Similarly, without recognition of or distinction among devices and their users, the individual client devices and users of the client devices may not be able to access and receive back from the host certain host-maintained preferences, such as personal identification settings, personal web pages, account information, wallet information, and financial information.